


breathe

by thewriterofperfectdisasters



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (not graphic and not prominent like it's literally so brief i probably don't even need to tag it), Baking as a Coping Mechanism, Brief Mentions of Blood, M/M, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Post-Civil War (Marvel), brief couch snuggling, idk honestly my guys, kinda fluffy??, memory recovery, no graphic depictions but it's there so, theres so much going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 16:02:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9910373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewriterofperfectdisasters/pseuds/thewriterofperfectdisasters
Summary: As he hid, trying to figure out who he was, his memory of baking came back, bit by bit. He started relating his new experiences with his old ones – using a knife to cut open vanilla beans was like slitting arteries, kneading bread was like a softer version of punching, the shaking in his hands whenever a loud noise sounded close by was a movement he could use for sifting flour and sugar. Whenever Bucky couldn’t sleep at night, he baked.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is thanks to an anon who sent me this as a prompt on tumblr, kinda. they asked for baking, i did this. who knows, honestly. not me. it's like 2:40am, i don't know fuckin anything tbh.
> 
> title is shit, but it's the best i could come up with and it took me five fucking minutes, and is only named as such bc i'm listening to breathe by fleurie. creative, right.

Bucky used to love cooking. Baking, even. Back before… everything.

He liked how methodical it was, he liked using his hands, and measuring things, like a labour of love he could eat at the end. Occasionally he would bake for Steve, small things like bread, if he could afford to get the ingredients.

After he fell… well. It wasn’t like Bucky could get his hands on flour, much less some time and equipment for baking. He lost himself, in those years.

When he escaped, he couldn’t remember his own name, he couldn’t remember Steve, and he couldn’t remember how to use his hands for any gentler purposes than loading a gun, or slipping a blood slicked knife into a holster.

As he hid, trying to figure out who he was, his memory of baking came back, bit by bit. He started relating his new experiences with his old ones – using a knife to cut open vanilla beans was like slitting arteries, kneading bread was like a softer version of punching, the shaking in his hands whenever a loud noise sounded close by was a movement he could use for sifting flour and sugar. Whenever Bucky couldn’t sleep at night, he baked.

There were times he had so many loaves and cakes that he started leaving them outside the doors of his neighbours.

After he and Steve found each other, and things settled down, Bucky picked up the habit again. He didn’t find himself doing so much night baking anymore, because now instead of dealing with nightmares by himself, he had Steve right there when he woke up screaming.

 _‘Shh,’_ Steve would say, carding one hand gently through Bucky’s hair and wrapping the other around his shoulders. _‘You’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you.’_

Bucky would just tighten his grip on Steve’s shirt, being mindful of his metal arm, making sure he didn’t accidentally crush him.

That fucking arm, though. Bucky quickly discovered that it was useful for cracking walnuts, but shitty for kneading dough, because it always got in between the plates. He started wearing a glove over that hand, in a vain attempt to protect it. Didn’t work quite as well as he hoped, because the first shitty disposable gloves he bought just ended up being shredded by the plates. (Thankfully, Bucky quickly discovered super thick gloves that didn’t do that.)

Even though Bucky had Steve now, and he was getting better, he still baked. He liked being able to go back into the routine they’d had nearly seventy years ago, where Bucky would make things for Steve, and Steve would thank him and say everything tasted delicious, even when it tasted like shit, or had the consistency of brick. (That happened considerably less now than it had all those years ago. Bucky’d had a lot more practice since.)

Things had settled now. Steve was back working with the Avengers, even though things were still a bit prickly with Stark. Bucky joined them sometimes, when they needed a sniper or an extra set of extra deadly hands. Despite who he was, and that he was slowly regained who he _had_ been, Bucky retained the parts of himself that had been created for less noble purposes, and he and Steve made far too good a team to pass up.

Steve, however, knew that sometimes it was too hard for Bucky to accept that, and left him at home in their apartment in Brooklyn, and went off with Nat and Clint and the others to fight evil. Or whoever the latest issue was. Whatever.

It was during one of these trips, when Steve was away in some foreign country getting shot at, that Bucky had one of the worst nightmares yet.

It wasn’t a flashback, as such. Then again, it easily could have been. What really got to Bucky about his nightmares was the fact that he was always powerless to stop himself from killing innocent people. He was in his head, and he was conscious of what he was doing, but he _couldn’t stop_ and people always died, and _Bucky_ was a bystander in his own mind as women and children cried and begged for their lives. _Bucky_ was yelling for himself to put down the gun, or the knife, and to stop spilling blood of these people that didn’t deserve to die.

Screaming in his own head often translated into real life, as he woke up and kept yelling for himself to stop, stop, _stop_.

And Steve wasn’t there.

The clock on Steve’s nightstand blinked a dull yellow with _4:02_ and offered no consolidation.

Bucky heaved a breath and swung himself off the bed, clenching his fists open and closed, as he tried to get a steady flow of air into his lungs. He struggled to find Steve’s voice in his mind, tried to picture what he would say if he was here, but the nightmare was too fresh in his head, and all he could see was _red_.

He briefly entertained the thought of calling Steve, before he realised that he could very well be in the middle of something actually _important_ , and the last thing he needed was to worry about Bucky.

So, Bucky would have to deal with this himself.

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky had a playlist for times like these. It was full of gentle music, soothing, instrumental things he wouldn’t have expected himself to ever listen to, but it distracted his mind just enough to allow him to focus his energy on making something.

All they had in the cupboards was the ingredients for the chocolate cake Steve requested, but sorry Steve, it wasn’t going to be there when he got back from wherever. Bucky intended to eat that fucker as soon as he could.

He pulled back his hair into a bun, slid a glove onto his metal hand, and got to work gathering all the ingredients.

_‘Please, no, no, I beg –’_

‘Shut up,’ Bucky muttered, sifting the flour and cocoa into his designated baking bowl. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up.’

_‘Please, let me go, I’m –’_

‘No,’ he growled. ‘We’re not doing this.’

Bucky stopped what he was doing for a moment, leaning his hands on the bench and closing his eyes. He ignored the voices in his head screaming for mercy, and focused on the music. The long, sad tones from the strings, the repeats of sections from other pieces from the same show, the addition of some gentle woodwind, and higher notes as it drifted into the next part of the story that the music was telling.

‘It’s okay,’ Bucky whispered. ‘It was a dream, and it’s okay.’

The woodwind section came back, making a short appearance as the star instruments, and Bucky pushed himself off the bench. ‘We’re making cake. We’re not dwelling on what isn’t real.’

The music mirrored an earlier piece from the same show, and Bucky took one last breath, before he returned to what he was doing, beginning to melt chocolate and a few other things over boiling water. He continued going through the steps of mixing and adding things, until he tipped his mixture into a pan and slid it into the oven.

He set the timer on the oven and gathered the ingredients for the ganache to put on top, ignoring the fact that his hands had started shaking again, as there was nothing to entertain them. He pulled his single glove off, tossing it in the trash, and began doing push ups. It was nearly 5am, so it wasn’t like he really _wanted_ to be doing push ups, but he knew if he didn’t do _something_ then his mind would wander and that was exactly what he didn’t want right now.

He continued doing small exercises – squats, lunges, shitty things like that – until his timer went off, signalling he could take his cake out and let it cool on a wire rack, and begin prepping the ganache. (Bucky didn’t understand how people on baking and cooking shows had so much difficulty making ganache – it wasn’t _hard_.)

Bucky might have put a little too much effort into icing his cake, considering he was just going to eat it anyway, but he liked to make everything look at least _slightly_ smooth.

Not like it felt any better when he sunk his fork into the thing.

 

* * *

 

‘Buck?’

Bucky cracked open one eye and was met with Steve’s face mere inches from his own. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey,’ Steve smiled. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Hmm.’

‘You made a cake.’

‘Yeah,’ Bucky sighed. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s fine. Kind of offended you didn’t save any, but kind of impressed you managed to eat an entire thing,’ Steve said, a note of amusement in his voice. ‘Nightmare?’

Bucky nodded, wriggling back a little into the couch to allow Steve some room.

‘Wanna talk about it?’ Steve asked, taking the hint and fitting himself onto the section of couch allocated to him.

‘Not really,’ Bucky said. ‘Thought you weren’t going to be home until tomorrow.’

‘Decided they could deal without me. Maybe I knew you were having a… not-good time.’

‘Not good,’ Bucky huffed. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Do you feel a bit sick after so much cake?’

‘Mm, only got through half. The rest is in the fridge.’

‘For me?’

‘For whoever gets there first.’

Steve laughed lightly. ‘Alright. Gonna take a nap?’

‘Mhmm,’ Bucky sighed, closing his eyes again and pushing his head under Steve’s chin. ‘Can’t sleep when you’re not here.’

‘Yeah,’ Steve agreed, already drifting to sleep himself. ‘Me neither.’

**Author's Note:**

> the piece of music i described shittily here was the veil of time by bear mccreary for outlander season 1. good shit, my guys.
> 
> i'm [here](http://grumpypunkbucky.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if u wanna send me prompts or whatever.


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